The Ultimate Noob Guide

THE ABSOLUTE

NOOB GUIDE

1.0 Introduction
Hello and welcome to the absolute noob-guide of the MMORPG World of Warcraft (massive multiplayer online role play game). If you read this you probably just bought World of Warcraft or are planning on buying it or you already have it, in which case the most things said in this guide will be already known to you.

This guide is meant to be informative and cover every single aspect of the game World of Warcraft that are needed to be able to play this game. This means the absolute basics (like moving and clicking, attacking and questing). The more advanced basics (dungeons, economics and items) will be explained in another guide on another day.

Please note that English is not my first language, so there is a possibility that I’ve made some mistake in my grammar and such.

I hope you have fun while reading this and also have fun while playing world of warcraft!

2.0 Absolute Basics2.1 Moving/clicking
Like any other MMORPG this game has an WASD-keyboard walk set up. It’s easy to get used to and pretty straight forward. You use W to move forward, D to move right, S to move down and A to move left. Some RPG’s tend to also use the normal “arrow” buttons, but WoW makes no use of those.

Yes I took this out of WoW itself, but I find these tutorials a bit superficial and buggy.

Your mouse is the most important tool in World of Warcraft. As you need to click everything for it to happen. This is similar with other RPG’s.

2.2 The screen

The names given in this picture are picked by myself and could therefore differ from certain guides/comments. I’ve tried to get the most used names for these things.

Unit Frames –
This is called unit frames because this shows all of your unit’s data. On every class there is shown: Health, level, name and a 3D Portrait. Classes differ on certain aspects which will come later on in this guide. But this part of the screen basically shows everything your character has. This is highly customizable, you can choose to either see the health in numbers or percentage for example.

Map Function –
This is the map function of World of Warcraft, it is a little minimap in which you can see your own dot and there are tons of different settings you can apply to see what is around you. For example change the settings so that it shows when there is a class trainer nearby. If you look closely on the picture you can see a book (to the right of the dot that is you). It also shows you where you are and it has allot of different features in it. It shows the dungeon/battleground timer, it shows if you have mail, it shows the time and it shows all the different buttons of installed add-ons on which I will tell more about in a different part of this guide.
Chat Function –
This is basically the MMO-chat function of World of Warcraft. All the different channels and such will be shown in this little box. It is highly customizable. I will go deeper into this function later on in this guide.

You -
This is your character. Your creation. All of your time on World of Warcraft you’ll be looking at this. Make sure it is something worth looking at.

The UI –
The UI is basically everything else you need. It shows the action bar, the interface, the bag bar and the XP-bar which you can see if you look closely (more about that later).

The Action Bar –
The action bar is the most important part of the whole screen. It can show everything you want it to show. It can be either spells, attacks, items, ability’s etc. You’ll probably not be able to read it but the action bar has key binds on it. This is ranged from “1” to “=” on your keyboard.

The Interface –
The interface shows different panels you can open which will provide you with the information you need to know about everything. This includes the character panel, the spell panel, the dungeon panel, the battleground panel, the interface panel, the talent panel, the quest log panel, the achievement panel and the question panel. Each of these panels will be explained later on in this guide.

The Bag Bar –
As the title says, this is the bar which shows your current bags. You can use the keybind “B” to open op this bag. Or you can use Shift-B to open up all your current bags. This will be explained later on in this guide.

2.3 The Goal
The goals of this game are different per person, as it has a wide range of different things that can be accomplished during the game. A goal can be to achieve the highest level, to get the most achievements, to down the most raid bosses (will be discussed later on in this guide), to get the best items, to be the best at PvP (will be discussed later on in this guide), to gain the most reputations (will be discussed later on in this guide), etc. The options are endless.
There are different difficulties per goal per person. For allot of people getting to the highest level will take ages, as for others this is done in mere weeks. While downing the raid bosses is hard for most people, as you must get to the highest level first before you can even compete with these bosses, it is needed to get the best items, as you get the best items from those bosses. This continues on and on. As previously said, the options are endless.

2.4 Races
When you start with this game you will immediately notice that you have allot of races to choose from, also you have two factions to choose from. Each race has different class options (will be discussed later on in this guide) and certain unique racial abilities. I will discuss the basic principles of each race and factions.

The Human Spirit: Increase spirit by 5%.
Diplomacy: 10% bonus to faction point gain.
Sword Specialization: Increases expertise with swords, and two-handed swords by 5.
Mace Specialization: Increases expertise with maces, two-handed maces by 5.
Human Supremacy: The dominance of Humanity is evidenced by having one more racial bonus than normal. Actually, make that two counting this one. (just a tooltip, no actual functionality)
Perception: Changed to a passive, now grants one character level of passive stealth detection
Every man for Himself: Removes all movement impairing efefcts and all effects which cause loss of control of your character. This effect shares a cooldown with other similar effects.

Escape Artist: Escape the effects of any immobilization or movement speed reduction effect. Instant cast. 1 min, 45 sec cooldown, cannot be resisted.
Expansive Mind: Increase Intellect by 5%.
Arcane Resistance: Reduces the chance to be hit by Arcane spells by 2%
Engineering Specialist: 15 point skill bonus to Engineering (note, this also raises the cap by 15 at each level of Engineering).

Night Elves –

Perception: Changed to a passive, now grants one character level of passive stealth detection
The Human Spirit: Increase spirit by 5%.
Diplomacy: 10% bonus to faction point gain.
Sword Specialization: Increases expertise with swords, and two-handed swords by 5.
Mace Specialization: Increases expertise with maces, two-handed maces by 5.
Human Supremacy: The dominance of Humanity is evidenced by having one more racial bonus than normal. Actually, make that two counting this one. (just a tooltip, no actual functionality)
Every man for Himself: Removes all movement impairing efefcts and all effects which cause loss of control of your character. This effect shares a cooldown with other similar effects.

Draenei –

Gift of the Naaru : Activate to heal your target for 35 + 15 per Level over 15 sec – 40 yd range – 1.5 sec cast – 3 min cooldown. (now scales based on the higher of either the caster's Attack Power or Spell Power)
Heroic Presence : Increases chance to hit by 1% for you and all party members within 30 yards. (Warriors, Paladins, and Hunters)
Inspiring Presence : Increases chance to hit with spells by 1% for you and all party members within 30 yards. (Priests, Mages, and Shaman)
Gemcutting : 5 point skill bonus to Jewelcrafting (note, this also raises the cap by 5 at each level of jewelcrafting).
Shadow Resistance : Reduces the chance to be hit by Shadow spells by 2%

Blood Fury: Activate to increase attack power and spell damage/healing by an amount based on level/class for 15 seconds, decreasing healing done to the user by 50% for the duration. 2 minute cooldown.
Hardiness: Reduces duration of stun effects by 15%.
Command: Damage done by Death Knight, Hunter and Warlock pets increased by 5%.
Axe Specialization: Expertise with One- and Two-handed Axes increased by 5.

Taurens –

War Stomp: Activate to stun opponents – Stuns up to 5 enemies within 8 yards for 2 seconds. 2 minute cooldown.
Endurance: Hitpoints increased by 5%. (now scales based on base health, to be tuned to approximately a 5% heath increase if the player were wearing green quality gear)
Cultivation: 15 point skill bonus to Herbalism (note, this also raises the cap by 15 at each level of herbalism).
Nature Resistance: Reduces the chance to be hit by Nature spells by 2%

Will of the Forsaken: Removes any fear, sleep, or charm effect (no longer has a lasting immunity).
Cannibalize: When activated, regenerates 7% of total health every 2 seconds for 10 seconds. Only works on Humanoid or Undead corpses within 5 yards. Any movement, action, or damage taken while Cannibalizing will cancel the effect.
Underwater Breathing: Underwater breath increased by 300%.
Shadow Resistance: Reduces the chance to be hit by Shadow spells by 1% (yes, this is lower than the other resistance racials)

Blood Elves –

Mana Tap: Activate to reduce target’s mana by (50 + Level) and charge you with arcane energy for 10 min. This effect stacks up to 3 times. 30 yd range – Instant – 30 sec cooldown.
Arcane Torrent: Activate to silence all enemies within 8 yards for 2 seconds. In addition, you gain 10 Energy, 10 Runic Power or (5 + Level) Mana for each charge of Mana Tap currently affecting you. 2 min. cooldown.
Arcane Affinity: 10 point skill bonus to Enchanting (note, this also raises the cap by 10 at each level of enchanting).
Magic Resistance: Reduces the chance to be hit by spells by 2%

Druid –
Druids are versatile hybrids. They perform different roles using appropriate shape-shifting forms. They can have high armor and rage like a warrior in Bear Form, stealth and fight in melee like a rogue in Cat Form, or heal and nuke with spells in humanoid form. Through talents, they can enhance one or more of these roles and even gain a new form for healing (Tree Form) or nuking (Moonkin Form). Their talent trees are Balance, for nuking, Feral, for melee damage and tanking capabilities, and lastly, Restoration, for healing. With roughly equivalent gear, talents appropriate to the role, and in the hands of a skilled player, they can be just as effective as one of the classes dedicated to each role. They also bring certain additional utility, such as battle resurrection with Rebirth, and emergency or additional healing or tanking, should one of the people filling the primary role die, go offline, or otherwise be unable to fully manage with their role. Certain key differences do still exist, giving them both advantages and disadvantages in any given role.

Hunter –
Hunters are the only class that can effectively use ranged weapons (bows, guns, or crossbows) as a primary source of damage. Very adept at kiting, they have plenty of tools to allow them to avoid melee combat, which is not where their strength lies. Hunters may tame many varieties of beasts to serve as combat pets, which along with an array of scouting, tracking, and survival abilities make them excellent solo characters. The three talent specializations for hunters are Marksmanship, Beast Mastery, and Survival.

Mage –
Mages are ranged magic damage dealers with very powerful direct and area of effect damage spells, but in return have weak armor and defense. Mages also feature a variety of utility spells, such as teleportation or the creation of portals to captial cities. The also feature the popular crowd control ability, Polymorph, and can even conjure food and water. Because of their various spells which include burst damage, they are often effective at PvP regardless of their low armor. Their talent specializations include: Fire, which uses many Area of Effect and Burst damage, Frost which offers great survivabitlity and includes a permanent Water Elemental pet that aids in battles, and Arcane, which focuses on dealing high damage to a specific target. Each of their talent trees are sure to provide a unique yet intriguing play style.

Paladin –
Paladins are Holy warriors and are a hybrid class. They can melee DPS, tank, or heal. Paladins also have very strong group support and buff abilities, arguably one of the best buffing and group support classes in the game. They can wear heavy plate armor and carry shields, but are also efficient single target healers, which combine to produce their renowned durability in combat. With talent specialization and equipment selection, Paladins can fill the role of melee DPS, tank, offtank, or healer and excel when called upon to spot-fill all these roles in a group setting. While a Retribution paladin's DPS is slightly less than a pure dps class, they make up for it with their extremely useful utility spells, buffs and auras. Their three talent trees are Holy, Retribution, and Protection.

Priests –
Priests are arguably the most versatile healing class in the game. Priests can be powerful in healing a single character or many allies at once. Priests have a variety of utility spells, along with a few tricks, such as Mind Control and the extremely useful Dispel Magic and Cure Disease. Priests are also known for their shields as they can be used to prevent damage to both the priest and allies, providing a very efficient yet different healing experience. Furthermore, Priests can also specialize in offensive shadow magic, gaining the ability to assume Shadowform, and at higher levels regenerating mana quickly for their entire party.

Rogues –
Rogues excel at dealing melee damage and incapacitating their foes, particularly low health and low armor targets such as casters. Stealth gives them a tactical advantage and allows them to start a fight on their own terms. Other important abilities include lockpicking and the handling of poisons. Also, a huge power is the rogue's ability to stun and incapacitate for a large period of time. This, paired with the rogue's high damage, gives him a huge edge over his opponent. Rogues do not use mana for their combat abilities. Instead they use energy and generate combo points which are used to execute finishing moves.
Shamans –
Shamans are one of the most versatile classes in the game as they can switch seamlessly from offensive caster to healer to melee DPS as needed, though at later levels they often specialize in one of these roles. Shamans can provide good support to a party, with the ability to step in and fill any role that may be lacking at the moment. Their high burst damage and healing also make them quite good at PvP. They are able to drop stationary totems on the ground which provide a variety of effects, many of which are useful to the entire raid. They are unique in that they can provide complete wipe recovery by self-resurrecting and then resurrecting the rest of the party.

Warlock –
Warlocks enslave demons and call upon dark magic and curses to dominate and destroy their foes. Like hunters, warlocks employ combat pets, but these are summoned demons rather than tamed beasts. They are primarily ranged magic damage dealers with a focus on damage over time in addition to nukes and AoE, but lack the extreme burst damage capabilities of a mage. Demon pets and fear spells give them a variety of tactical options, and they have several utility spells and abilities, including summoning party members and creating healthstones and soulstones.

Warrior –
Warriors are close-combat fighters and usually fill the role of primary tank or offtank, as they are able to both withstand and inflict fierce physical punishment and have the most versatile means of generating threat and keeping aggro off other characters. They can also contribute very strong melee DPS when needed. Warrior abilities use rage, which is generated by dealing and taking damage, but decays over time while not in combat. Warriors are highly dependent on their gear, as their ability to deal and take damage is controlled directly by the quality and effects of their weapons and armor.

Hero classes: Death Knight –
The death knight combines martial prowess with dark, necromantic energies. It is the first hero class in World of Warcraft. Having a non-hero-class character at level 55 or above is (the only) prerequisite to be able to create a death knight. Death knights start at level 55 in a new starting area in the Eastern Plaguelands with multiple spells and abilities ready to use.

They are a hybrid class, able to tank and/or deal damage. They are a melee class with casting abilities like the paladin, and can raise undead minions. Although they will have minions, they will not be a pet class (unless they have appropriate talent), but will use some of their mechanics. They are the only class to use the rune resource system. It is also notable that death knights have their own talent trees comparable to current classes.

2.6 Tips & Tricks
The only real tip I can give at this moment is to pick something you really like. Off course you don’t know what you really like now, but believe me you will see it soon enough. Don’t let yourself be influenced by other people on the race/class you choose. It’s your character and it should be your choice as well.

3.0 Fighting3.1 Basics
As with almost all RPG’s World of Warcraft works with an point and click system. You walk around (using WASD) and when you see the enemy you select him by pressing the left mouse button. Depending on your class the next move will be either right click to engage him in hand-to-hand combat, right click to start shooting or any of the keybind’s you yourself are using (by default: “1” to“=”)

This will start the fight. Now it’s depending on your class your using your abilities to get this enemy down. In the picture below you see me fighting a level 2 enemy, I am a paladin so I use hand-to-hand combat to kill my enemy.

You’re a low level character so downing an enemy shouldn’t be a problem. When you kill it you can right click it to “loot” the enemy. In which case you take his belongings, this doesn’t mean you take his clothes and weapons. Most off the time it’s just trash/vendor loot (which means you don’t need it and most of the time sell it to a vendor nearby).

3.2 Spell book
Every class has his own spell book. Each spell book had 4 different tabs to the right, this consists of the general tab (which every class has) and the 3 different specs of that certain class. I won’t be explaining each spec of each class, most of the time the abilities will be self-explanatory.

The general tab is the combination of both the racial’s of that certain race, the languages you are able to speak, the armor skills and the riding skill you currently have. If you look closely you can see a professions tab in the bottom of the spell book. In here you can see the levels of your current professions (this is self-explanatory).

3.3 Talents
Each class has his own abilities and spells, also each class can spec himself in either of the three possible trees of his class. These are called talent trees. As a level 1 you can’t look into this tab as it is level 10 and higher. So before you can look into that, you need to level to 10 first. I’ll show you the basics of this tab.
In the image below you can see the three specializations a paladin has. Holy, Protection and Retribution. Each specialization has his own talents and abilities granted with it. These are self-explanatory and I would really encourage you to read all of them before picking one.

When you’ve a chosen a tree you can go over to the talent trees themselves. Now it’s up to you to spend your talent points wisely. You can use internet in order to get a nice levelling spec or damage spec but I would like to encourage you to try something. Just try to make something nice which you like playing with. It’s resettable for a few silver (the price will be higher the more you reset) so it’s not a problem to waste a talent for something you just want to try out.

3.4 Tips & Trick’sTip 1:
Press Esc -> Interface -> action bar and toggle on the left options (bottom left bar, bottom right bar, right bar, right bar 2). This will enable more action bars to be used to your liking. The one you have now won’t be enough for the whole ride to level 85.

Tip 2:
When you’re in the interface go to “Controls” and toggle “auto loot”. This will make it easier to loot enemy’s . You simply have to right click them and you’ll automatically loot them.

The most important thing in this game is to have fun, so I’ll repeat what I’ve stated before: don’t pick a character/class or build (tree build) because someone else wants you to. Since you just started playing it doesn’t really matter what you pick. You can always make an alt (a secondary character you create).

4.0 Experience4.1 Basics
This game works with an normal levelling system, you do quest/kill mobs in order to get experience. When you reach an amount of experience you level up! Levelling up will give your more health and mana (if you’re a caster), it will give you more stats (stamina, strength and such) and it will give you more abilities the further you level.

The higher level you are, the higher the experience need is (this is logical off course).

4.2 Experience
There are certain ways of getting experience in World of Warcraft. Now that Cataclysm has come out there are even more ways to get experience! The most common used way to level is by doing quests.

When you see a yellow exclamation mark above someone’s head it means that person will give you a quest when you talk to him (right click the person or exclamation mark). When you’ve read the quest go do it.

On the right side you will see your current quest progress (this is the in-game quest helper). When you are done it will show that as well.

--Not done ----- Done

When your done with the quest you should move back to the person who gave you this quest. There will be a yellow question mark above his head meaning you’ve completed it. Talk to him again and receive your award. You have now completed your first quest! (note: the first quests you are doing in every single starting area will be easy to follow and do, expect harder quest the higher your level is)

Cataclysm
Now cataclysm is out there is a new way of gaining experience. This is by using professions, for every mine or herb you gatter you will get experience appropriate for your level and although this is nice to get early on so you get a experience boost it’s not really needed. Questing is still the way to go to level. But as stated earlier, you need to have fun. So maybe you really like farming herbs, go do it!

Dead
When you die, you wont come back at a certain “save point” as this game doesn’t work with that. You will become a ghost and be teleported to the nearest spirit healer. You can talk to that spirit healer and ask for a ress. This will give you a penalty (your gear will get damage and your attributes will be weakened by 75% for a certain amount of time). But as you are low level your penalty wont be that harsh as to when you are level 85.

4.3 Regions
World of warcraft is huge, it consist of both Outland and Azeroth. Azeroth consists of 3 continents: Kalimdor, Northrend and the Eastern Kingdoms. Outland consists of one giant continent. The reason why I state this in the levelling section is because it is really important to go to the appropriate levelling region.

If your quests are grey you are in a to low area. If you quests are green, your region is a bit below your level. If your quests are yellow or orange, the region is appropriate for your level. Is the quest red its high above your level and your probably not able to do it yet.

It’s not that hard to keep yourself in the appropriate regions, if you do all the quests in the same region you will be guided to the next region without a problem. But please keep this in mind if you are deciding to go to another region. You can use some sites in order to see the level range of certain area’s.

4.4 Tips & TricksTip 1:
As stated before World of Warcraft has his own quest tracker. When you are doing a quest and you look at the map you can see where you need to head now in order to complete the quest. The best thing to do when levelling is to pick up all the quest in the camp/village/city and think of a good route to do all the quest on your map. It’s really time-consuming to do all the quest one by one.

Tip 2:
Use the “toggle autorun” function. Allot of new players don’t know about this. The default key is “num lock”, I would consider using “num pad /” as the key since you wont be turning num lock off then.

5.0 Summary
Well that’s it for this guide, I hope you liked reading it and I hope it helped you understand the game of World of Warcraft. I will be revealing another guide on another day concerning the more advanced basics.

"Noobs" generally won't look at guides posted on websites such as this one, because they are clueless as is. But a lot of effort went into this, and I hope this gets put to good use elsewhere. Well done on the guide.

Great guide! I'll send this to friends who are just starting so they can read it themselves and I won't have to tell them every single detail.

However, you put the human racials under night elves and left out the human picture and the night elf racials.

Originally Posted by Odyseas

In my ears it basicaly translates to this:
Q: Hi, are you aware that warlock survivability in PvP is shit?
A: Yes, I am aware of that but dont worry. I know that SP's have way better survivability than you but once we nerf them to the ground you will both be crap and then you wont have to whine about it.

Nice guide youwe made but a small sugestion: if i were you i would have change title either to ultimate Beginers guide, or ultimate Newbie guide, becouse in my opinion its clearly made for new players, and the title suggests it made for noobs (and as we all know the sole essence of being a noob is not to learn anything)